When you have anorexia, your ED (I call mine Corrupted Clippy) likes to set targets for weight loss. It tries to convince you that everything will be better if you just reach your “goal weight.” It is, of course, a MASSIVE lie — but anorexia is a mental illness, and all anyone with anorexia wants is for everything to be better. So you want to believe it. You want to believe that a magic number on the scale will be the answer to all that hurts.

Because controlling your weight is something you CAN control. And the grief, trauma, hurt, and other mental illnesses I’ve been dealing with? Aren’t.

Despite the fact that I’ve been increasing my calories and making steps into recovery, a vitamin D incident meant I lost weight — and as a result, I reached Clippy’s goal weight.

This post is not just for anyone who deals with the great goal weight lie but for future me. Because at some point in the future, Clippy will whisper another goal weight. Or the sentence, “If I just lost a little bit, sensibly, I’d feel better” will cross my mind like it did for YEARS while weight restored. And I need the me who’s sitting here right now — who has reached it — to say clearly:

Reaching it didn’t make anything better.

I Still Don’t Feel “Sick Enough”

Clippy likes to say things like, “You’re not that bad. You haven’t even reached X weight. You’re not sick enough.” But the truth is — there is NO “sick enough” for Clippy. Ever. It’s still saying it to me right now, even though it told me this weight would be what “sick enough” looked like.

It will never think I’m sick enough. Because it doesn’t want to help me. It wants to DESTROY me.

I often feel like I have to be sick enough to even attempt recovery. But that’s not true. You don’t. In fact, I was working really hard to make steps into recovery — specifically so I wouldn’t get to my goal weight. But then vitamin D came along and ruined that for me.

But you know what? NOTHING changed when I got here. There’s no difference between the me sitting here right now and the me from four days ago, at a slightly higher weight.

The time to recover is as soon as you realise you’ve lapsed or relapsed. You don’t have to get to this point. You don’t have to prove anything. You don’t need to hit some arbitrary weight to be worthy of care. Or to be worthy of eating more.

I’ve lost an entire year of my life in this relapse. That’s how long it took to get to this “goal weight.” A year of missed occasions. Of fearing food. Of not joining in. If I’d been able to get out of the relapse sooner, I wouldn’t have missed out on so much.

My Best Friend Is Still Gone

One of the reasons for my relapse was the death of my best friend, WeeGee. Well, I got to my goal weight, and of course, she’s still gone.

When she died, I fell into old habits of leaning on Clippy, the way I used to lean on her. I felt so alone and just wanted a friend — someone who had been there for me through thick and thin. And the truth is, aside from WeeGee, the only other constant in my life has been Clippy.

It was there even when I was weight restored, but without WeeGee, Clippy became louder. I just needed someone. Anyone. But Clippy is the polar opposite of WeeGee. WeeGee was soft, kind, comforting, and she loved me. Clippy doesn’t. Clippy is only out to get kicks from seeing me cry over a Katsu Chicken Curry meal. WeeGee loved to comfort. Clippy loves to torment.

WeeGee understood the full weight of living with a Clippy. Not many people do. It’s hard to find others, especially at my age, who have had an obnoxious passenger in their brain for most of their life. We recovered together. And relapsing made me feel closer to her, in the worst way.

I met her when I was this weight. I’m remembering her at a time I shouldn’t be. I want to remember her as the person she became, but I’m haunted by my own weight and numbers — by where I was last time.

She wouldn’t want this for me. She’d want to see me the same way I want to remember her. I can’t even feel the full depth of my emotions for her because of the side effects of starvation. I know that eating more will mean I’ll feel the full depth of my grief.

But it’s also stolen the full weight of my intense love.

Reflections Can Be Deceiving

I have body dysmorphia, but mostly with my face. I think everyone has a degree of weight blindness — no one really feels the weight they are. I know when I’m underweight. I can see it, and I can feel it. My bones hurt really badly when I sit down. The bath hurts. Lying on my side in bed makes my knees ache.

I don’t really care about my appearance. I’ve always valued personality more. When I was weight restored, I just wore what my Gen Z son calls “a millennial uniform”: black leggings, a top, and usually a gaming hoodie. I wore it over and over again. I just buy four of the same outfit and wear it forever.

But I have anorexia, and people think that’s about being “thin,” or trying to get compliments, or becoming more “acceptable to society” or some other stigma crap I can’t stand hearing. My goal weights never are. They go beyond that. I don’t look cute or aspirational — I look sick. I look frail. I look like I’m wasting away, like I’m battling an illness that could make me fall down or collapse at any moment. I’m not trying to be acceptable — no one would look at me and think that.

I’ve been battling internally my whole life with mental illnesses and not just this one. I have bipolar disorder. I have trauma that my last therapist suggested could be CPTSD. I’ve also been diagnosed with PTSD from an entirely different event. I have anxiety disorders. I have invisible physical disabilities. And then the grief of losing WeeGee was added to all of that.

None of it is visible.

When I was weight restored, no one would know I was struggling. When I went for my COVID jab — because I was on the at-risk list due to my disabilities — the nurse asked, “Why did you get called for one? These are just for people with an illness on the list.” I do have an illness on the list. But it’s invisible.

My ED, therefore, gives me a way to show my internal battles on the outside. It’s not very effective, though. I’ve experienced so much stigma from mentioning my ED — more than from anything else. That might be because I made the mistake of being real on Instagram, though – not my wisest move.

People still don’t think I’m struggling. They still don’t get it. They don’t look at me and realise I’m struggling — they look at me and judge me FOR struggling. And you know what? Maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s something I have to accept.

No one is coming to help me. No one is coming to save me. So, I guess, I have to save myself.

The Cost of My Goal Weight

By trying to deal with grief, I gave myself more grief. My goal weight isn’t just a number — it’s the death of who I was when I was weight restored. And personality is EVERYTHING to me. I’ve always believed that. But mine has been slowly stripped away by underfuelling my body.

I’m not “me” anymore. I’m a shadow of my former self. A hollow version. A lesser version. I don’t feel the way I used to feel about things. Apart from my son — who I still love more than anything — I don’t even LOVE things the way I used to. I’ve always struggled with my overly intense emotions, but the highs of those emotions — my deep love of things, my intense passions, my hyperfixations, my special interests, my joy — made life worth living.

I can’t tell you how much I miss Domino’s nights with my son. The way we’d put on one of our favourite shared movies, like Wonder or Nobody, order a bunch of sides, eat too much sauce, and laugh like everything was okay. I can’t tell you how much I miss being there with him — not just physically, but really in the moment.

I can’t tell you how much I miss playing video games and being completely obsessed with them. The way I’d lose hours exploring stories and worlds, totally immersed. That part of me is still in there — I feel her. I wear her Cyberpunk jacket. But my brain won’t let me into Night City when it’s busy thinking about food.

I miss getting hyperfixated on a single pin on Pinterest, and suddenly having a brand new hobby after 50 hours of research. I miss researching and quoting quantum physics. I miss the way I’d bonded with my Jellycats. I’m so muted and starved that even my connection to them has faded.

I grieve for her — the me from when I was weight restored. I miss her. I miss how I felt when I was her. I wear her clothes, but they don’t fit. And they don’t fit me emotionally, either. She feels like a completely different person now.

And there’s only one way to get her back — and never lose her again. Unfortunately, me in the future reading this, it’s this: you can’t ever listen to Clippy. I’m not here working so hard at eating more, for you to get here again and not eat your favourite Domino’s pizza for 2 years. Please don’t.

NOTHING is better here.

Reaching a goal weight isn’t just about losing kilos — it means losing every kilo of who you are.

This is a song old me played on repeat several hundred times to warn myself of becoming Dead Inside.